Ashes and Dust.
by Starkiller1
Summary: Buffy is dead. How do people deal with that? Has absolutely NO connection to the final episode of S5. This was written before that was aired.


Ashes and Dust  
  
DARK EROTICA NEEDS YOU!  
Click Here!  
  
Ashes and Dust.  
  
TITLE: Ashes and Dust.  
BY: Starkiller  
RATING: M  
PAIRING: None.  
CATEGORY: Death fic. Speculative.   
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Joss Wheadon owns them all. I'm just playing around a   
bit. Please don't sue.   
*****   
Ashes and dust.   
For years, they had dreaded the arrival of this day. For years, they had tried   
not to think about it, tried to ignore what might be. Now, at last, after so   
much tension and drama, the day had arrived.   
Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer, was dead.   
*****   
When the news reached him, Angel had returned to his offices after a   
particularly hard demon kill. He had, as always, rescued the girl, saved the day   
and thwarted evil. He had returned to the offices at the hotel to find Cordy in   
tears, holding a letter, Wesley punching a wall and Gunn asking "Who?"   
Angel walked into the lobby and looked at his three friends.   
"What happened?"   
Cordy cried harder.   
"Oh Angel!"   
She sobbed, as she moved to him, and held him tightly. Wesley turned to face his   
employer and friend and occasional lover, an expression of utmost compassion on   
his face.   
"Angel. I'm so sorry."   
Angel had looked down at Cordelia's dark hair as she held him tight. He looked   
at the sad face of Wesley. He regarded the confused expression on Gunn's face.   
He frowned.   
"What's going on?"   
Cordelia pulled back from him, sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her   
hand. Wesley gently touched her back. She steadied herself and drew in a deep   
breath.   
"It's Buffy."   
A cold, dark hand reached out and took hold of Angel's heart, and squeezed. Fear   
for Buffy, the only woman he had ever truly loved in his entire existence filled   
his being.   
"What about her? Is she all right?"   
"She-She's dead Angel."   
The world came tumbling down around his ears as his reason for living, his soul   
and his heart, the beginning and the conclusion of all his thoughts were ripped   
from him with one simple sentence.   
Dead. Buffy was dead.   
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.   
*****   
They had left Gunn and the newly released Faith in charge. Wesley had taken care   
of the arrangements. Angel was incapacitated by grief. He watched with uncaring   
eyes as Wesley gave Faith and Gunn instructions. He listened without hearing as   
Cordelia fixed up the car so that they could travel in the daylight. He dimly   
heard Faith promise to take care of things while they were in Sunnydale. He   
didn't care.   
She was gone. Buffy was dead. He no longer had a reason to live.   
*****   
The drive to Sunnydale was silent and somber. Angel didn't notice. Wesley and   
Cordelia drove, taking it in turns, and frequently exchanging worried looks. The   
silence grew oppressive, uncomfortable, as they arrived at the home of Giles,   
former watcher of the former slayer.   
Willow, Oz, Xander, and two women Angel did not recognise were in the lounge   
room. They all looked older, sadder. They were pale reflections of themselves.   
He didn't care. Buffy was gone, and everything that had life, colour and   
vibrancy had gone with her. He acknowledged the words of comfort and sadness   
from Buffy's friends, and allowed Giles to take him to one side to talk to him.   
"She knew it was coming."   
Angel grunted.   
"She knew. I don't know HOW she knew, but she did. She came to me three days ago   
and gave me a pile of letters with some shoe boxes for everyone. This one's for   
you."   
Giles proffered a small box and an envelope. Angel took them and looked at the   
tired, sad face of the watcher.   
"If you need me, just call."   
Giles left him alone.   
Angel sat, and opened the envelope and read the last words his love had to say   
to him.   
"Dear Angel  
Spike once told me that the way he managed to kill two slayers was because he   
got to them when they no longer cared if they lived or died. He said that that   
kind of attitude made them careless, and they knew it. They knew when they were   
to die and they accepted it. They went through the motions of living until he   
came along and killed them. I never used to buy into that until now.   
"My game's been slipping. I've been hurt, Willow's been hurt. I'm so tired and I   
know it will never stop, never end, until I'm dead. I know its coming, I can   
feel it. And now I know what the slayers before me must have felt because I   
don't care anymore. The only thing I care about is you. You are the only thing   
I've ever cared about in my life.   
"There's nothing you can do to change what's coming my love. My life is over.   
I've performed my duties as a slayer and I've done pretty damn well. Death is   
coming, and to be honest, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to   
sleeping. I think you know what I mean. I understand at last, what it was you   
wanted from The First, all those years ago.   
"I don't expect redemption or absolution or accolades or anything like that. I   
just want to rest. It's been so long.   
"I will forever carry the memory of you and our love though, with me, in my   
soul, for all eternity.   
"Always love,  
Buffy."   
He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. Calmly, numbly, he opened   
the box. Inside were the silver cross he had given her and the claddagh ring he   
had given her. Silently he put them on, not caring at the sting of the cross   
against his skin.   
He closed the box and sat, for long silent minutes, as the tears began to fall,   
becoming a torrent, a flood. An animal like wail of pain and loss came from him,   
and he fell forward to the floor, curling up into a foetal ball, sobbing out his   
grief and loss and loneliness, in tears of salty water and of blood.   
*****   
In deference to his relationship with Buffy, the funeral was held after sunset.   
The funeral party was small, Willow and her girlfriend Tara, to whom he'd been   
introduced, Xander and his wife Anja. Cordelia, Wesley, Giles, Riley had come   
back from the jungle. Oz was there, and strangely enough, Spike. The small party   
were silent and somber as Buffy was laid to rest in the graveyard, under the   
Weeping Willow tree, next to her mother.   
The small party left in groups of twos and threes, leaving Angel, Spike and   
Wesley alone at the grave. Spike looked at Angel and sighed.   
"I loved her too, mate."   
Angel said nothing. Spike sighed again, walked towards him and touched him once,   
on the shoulder, before following the others out of the cemetery. Wesley   
remained.   
"What are you going to do now, Angel?"   
Angel still said nothing. Wesley looked at him long and hard and sighed in his   
turn.   
"I'll be at Giles' should you need me. Don't take too long out here. You don't   
want to be caught out after sunrise."   
*****   
The night hours ticked away and Angel sat down in the center of the grave of the   
woman he loved. He had taken paper and pen from his coat pocket and written for   
hours since Wesley had left him alone here. He had things he needed to say, and   
this was the only outlet he had left in which to say them.   
The sun came up, in a dazzling display of red and gold. Angel looked up into the   
sunlight, blinded by it.   
"Beautiful."   
He murmured, and then he burst into flame, becoming ash, that drifted into the   
soil to mingle with the essence of the body that was Buffy's.   
*****   
They found the stack of folded paper on the grave. Cordelia couldn't stop   
crying. Everyone, including Xander, was crying. Spike had long left, obviously   
with some sort of presentiment, for his final comment had been just before   
sunrise when he had said, quite out of the blue---   
"Well I'll be damned. He's done it."   
---and left the sad little group. They would not see him again.   
Through the tears, Tara sifted through the pile of paper. Each folded sheet was   
a note---one each for Willow, Xander, Giles, Cordelia, Wesley, and two others,   
Faith and Gunn.   
No-one ever said what Angel had written in their letters, but no-one made any   
noise of reproach for his actions after reading them. Giles had carved on the   
headstone of Buffy an extra item, so that it read:   
'Here lies Buffy Summers, beloved daughter, sister and friend. 1980-2005, Rest   
In Peace. With her lies her Angel, forever together, even beyond death.'   
  
  
Thanks for coming, be sure to email me at Home.   



End file.
